


The Hanged Man

by Canaan



Series: Major Arcana [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: AU, Angst, Fix-It, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-21
Updated: 2010-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:38:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canaan/pseuds/Canaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With all the potential of the Time Vortex, the Doctor still couldn't see a way to save everyone.  But the Bad Wolf had a better understanding of love.  Goes AU at the end of tPotW, but you can assume this springs from the How it Could Have Happened continuity up to that point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Knight of Cups

**Author's Note:**

> Wendymr's comment on "Sometimes" got me thinking about AUs. This is the result. There's at least one more scene to follow when the pieces fall into place, but I don't know if it'll be another chapter or if this'll become a series. Please don't be too angry with the Doctor--he'll deal, he's just not there yet in this scene.
> 
> I decided if I was going to go AU, I was going to paint with a really broad brush, so hats off to Amberite, whose incredibly dark and utterly amazing "Survivor's Guilt" first made me see Jack as a coffee filter. So I decided to take a stab at it, though alas, the results aren't as innovative.
> 
> Disclaimer: I still don't own them, I'm just haunted by them.

Jack bathed in pain, wading through it as he fought muscles awash with lactic acid to reach his lovers. It was nothing to the taut lines of anguish and fear the Doctor's frame was cast in. "But that's what I see, all the time." Shock flattened the Doctor's words. "And it doesn't drive you mad?"

Rose's eyes bled flecks of gold light as they trained on Jack. The glow writhed around her, embodying the pull that had dragged him up out of darkness and off the floor. Now it drew him to her like they were oppositely charged particles. There was frisson along his skin that had nothing to do with the pain of extermination. _"Timelines."_ The word whispered in his head. "My Captain," Rose called. _"My knight,"_ echoed inside his mind. The way opened up in front of his senses. Every step toward her was a step along the sure path, the only one that mightn't lead to devastating loss. The Doctor wrapped arms around her fiercely, like he wanted to protect her from something, but hadn't decided what. "Will you fix us?

 _"Will you die for us?"_  


***

  
The Doctor stared numbly at the beloved face on all that terrible stillness as Jack advanced on them. _"Will you die for us?"_ He stared at the two of them, more horrified than he'd been in the moment of Jack's death. The question was telepathic--Jack shouldn't even have heard it--but the two humans (and was _that_ , that awful thing that had become of Jack, really human, anymore?) were locked into some kind of circuit by the TARDIS. Timelines narrowed around them, working to wrap themselves like a noose around his neck. The Bad Wolf bled understanding into his mind, and it wrenched a sound from him that might have been a gasp or a sob and had no business emerging from a Time Lord's throat.

 _"I think I already did,"_ Jack thought. There was a numb quality to the unvocalized words, like it hadn't sunk in yet or wasn't important right now. Timelessness pressed up against the Doctor as Jack reached toward Rose, shocking enough that his respiratory bypass kept trying to kick in. "Whatever you need," he said.

The Doctor turned Rose so he stood between them. "Jack, you don't understand. What it--they--" he fumbled, "-- _She_ \--wants . . . could kill you. Permanently." His hearts tightened at the thought, even as a hundred years of training whispered that might make it the right thing to do.

Jack blinked, a few gold flecks visible in his eyes, and grinned at him. "I know. But I don't want to lose . . . us. I only feel a glimmer of what she sees, but you're the Time Lord--you must see it all. Half a chance is better than none."

Rose began to sag in his arms. "Doctor . . . my head . . . "

Hands the Doctor knew intimately reached past him, fixed in the universe in a way that shouldn't be possible. This might not kill Jack . . . or it might be the only thing that could kill Jack. "Doctor, you have to do this. Now."

It had broken his heart to send Rose away, knowing he and Jack were going to die and she'd never forgive him. He couldn't do it again--he hadn't the right to take this choice from his partners. The timelines narrowed to one. He surrendered Rose's weight to Jack, who held her close. He pressed right up into that persistent wrongness, into a scent he knew and the fever-heat of human flesh. He closed his eyes and placed one hand on the contact point at Jack's temple and the other between his shoulder blades, and the timeline locked in around the three of them.

He pulled at raw power of the time vortex, extending the circuit into himself as he drew it out of Rose through the way station of Jack. The sheer overwhelming force of it wrenched a drawn-out cry of pain from Jack even as his life-force diluted it, but the human didn't move. The golden glow swelled to fill him, burning from the inside out. He swayed on his feet and the Doctor caught him under the arms, easing him to his knees even as he continued to pull a trickle of golden force from his lovers.

Rose slumped, unconscious. Jack was breathless in a sea of pain as he tried to ease her to the floor, the Doctor reaching around him to help with one arm. It put his cheek up against the other man's back. Jack's heart stuttered under his ear. The Doctor lowered Rose the final few inches as that labored organ throbbed once, twice . . . and stopped.

He blinked back tears and lay Jack's still body on the floor, one hand going to close the other man's eyes. That sense of stillness bled straight into the fabric of the universe, apart from the flow of time. It gnawed at him and gave him hope, all at once.

He gathered Rose's warm weight into his arms and stood, breathing in the scent of her to steady himself. He could get her to the medbay before he released the rest of the power back to the TARDIS. He'd bring Jack in after. Jack . . . had nothing but time.


	2. The Evidence of the Senses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BR'd by the amazing Aibhinn, who makes me stop and think about things, whether she knows it or not. :)
> 
> No, I don't know how many parts there will be or when the third part will be up. I know there will _be_ a third part; that's the best I can do right now.
> 
> Disclaimer: They're still not mine, but when Rose goes stomping around the inside of my head, it's really loud.

Rose became aware of the TARDIS, all comforting sounds and familiar smells and a sense that something was looking out for her. It didn't seem terribly urgent to open her eyes, but she did anyway. She was in the med bay. She moved a little, feeling for injuries and trying to figure out why she was here, since she didn't remember limping into the TARDIS. She didn't remember getting hurt. In fact, she didn't remember much of anything past the big yellow truck.

She must have made a noise, because the Doctor turned toward her. He was sitting next to another medical table, and Rose saw Jack stretched out behind him. He crossed to her and took her hand. "Must've made it," she said.

He smiled at her, but there was a pain in his eyes she wanted to kiss away. "You were fantastic." His voice broke a little. She tried to sit up, but he put his hands on her shoulders. "Wait, just let me scan you again, first."

The Doctor and his scans and readings. Rose made a disgruntled noise, but lay back. "You _git_. You packed me off home without so much as a by-your-leave, and Jack went and got hurt in the meantime!"

The Doctor hesitated. It wasn't much, barely a pause in the way he ran the scanner over her, but she knew him too well not to see it. "What do you remember?"

Rose managed not to cringe at the question. She hated those words; they were never a good sign. She'd only recently moved back in with her mother after Jimmy Stone when Shareen broke up with _her_ boyfriend. Shareen was either angry or celebrating--Rose wasn't sure which, and she was still depressed enough it hardly mattered. They'd spent most of two or three days drinking--she still wasn't sure how long, exactly. When she woke up, in pyjamas in her own bed with her mouth tasting like something'd crawled into it and died, Jackie'd asked her, "What do you remember?"

Two days later, she'd gone out and got a job. She hadn't wanted to hear those words ever again. "I was goin' to get back to you by showing the TARDIS what I needed to happen. We used a tow truck . . . "

"You used a _tow truck_ to tear into my ship?" The Doctor's outrage could peel paint off the walls, if the TARDIS's walls had paint.

Rose swatted the hand holding the scanner. "Oi! Didn't leave me much choice, you! Got the feeling she approved."

"That's beside the point . . . "

Rose was flushed with anger. She wondered if his scan showed him that--he could be so remarkably dense about human emotions, sometimes. "No," she cut him off. "No, it's not, Doctor. Just when you needed us most, you sent me away. You love us. You trust us. What gives you the right to treat me like a kid?"

The Doctor made a strangled sound and put the scanner down. "It was the only way to keep you safe."

He sounded desperate, but she was on a roll, now. "So you're tellin' me you tricked me and sent me off like baggage _for my own good_?" Her outrage colored the air between them.

He didn't want to answer her, and then suddenly, he was going to. The turn-around was enough to put her off her balance. "No." He swallowed. "For mine." She almost flinched, her shoulders slumping back toward the table as her fury found nowhere to go and started to bleed away. "I sent you away because I'm selfish. Because I couldn't do what I thought I needed to do if I knew you were there to," he stumbled over a word, "suffer for it." He held his hands out to her, giving her the shadow of his usual manic grin. "Turns out, I couldn't do it anyway."

She shook her head, but took his hands and let him help her sit up. "Then what stopped the Daleks? They're not still outside, are they?" Her eyes drifted toward the med bay door.

The Doctor shook his head. "No. We're . . . in the Vortex."

She studied his face, all done up in pain and guilt and maybe the littlest bit of hope mixed in. "What about the Daleks?" she asked quietly. "Doctor, what aren't you telling me?"

He wrapped his arms around her, less a hug of love or affection and more like he was reassuring himself that she was still there. An uncomfortable weight settled into the pit of her stomach. "You don't remember anything after you opened the TARDIS's console?" he asked.

She thought back. The truck. The glow from the console. The absolute knowledge that she'd got it _right_ . . . "Singing," she said. "There was singing." She blinked and shook her head. Why would there have been singing?

"The TARDIS sang to you," the Doctor murmured, stroking her hair. "You humans. Fantastic, you are. One glimpse of the heart of the TARDIS and Blon became an egg again. But you, Rose Tyler--you didn’t look away, didn't hold anything back. You took the Time Vortex into yourself. All of it. Should've driven you mad, but you stepped out of the TARDIS like a protecting goddess and turned the Daleks into dust."

Rose swallowed. It was like listening to him describe someone else. "'m not much of a goddess. You'd still have done for them with your wave-thing." He stiffened in her arms. Something about the wave, then. He really couldn't do it? The Doctor never admits he can't do _anything_. "An' besides, what kind of goddess lets one of her blokes get hurt?" She looked over at Jack, lying still on the table off to the side. So still . . . "Doctor?" she asked, uneasy. "How's Jack?"

The Doctor was silent. "It's complicated."

Now that she'd looked, really looked, at their partner, she couldn't look away. There wasn't a mark on him, but he was dreadfully pale and his skin had gone waxy. If he was breathing, she couldn't see it. She reached a hand toward him, the fingers trembling. "Is he . . . he's dead?" She could barely whisper.

The Doctor shook his head and caught her hand in his own. "I don't know."

Rose could feel emotion welling up in her, like it was going to be a laugh or a scream and hadn't quite decided which. "How can you _not know_?" Her voice was shrill and a little distant in her own ears. "Is he okay, Doctor? Will he be okay?"

The Doctor shuddered again and rocked her a little. "I _don't know_ , Rose. It's complicated. He . . . " He broke off. "He died, Rose, but it didn't take. I heard him die." There's a tremor in the Doctor's voice, now. "They exterminated him, and I'd sent you home to your mum, and my hearts were breaking. And then you showed up, and the Daleks went to bits, and you waved your hand and said, 'I bring life.' Next thing I know, you're tellin' me 'bout the nature of the universe, and Jack's tearing into level 500 like his life depends on it."

The weight in her stomach crawled toward her throat, and she swallowed against it. "I think I feel sick," she muttered, and the Doctor made fussing noises that were almost relieved, putting vile-looking things together in a cup and telling her to drink it. "He was dead," she said. The words didn't sound real in her own ears. "Then he wasn't." It made as much sense as her destroying Daleks with a wave of her magic wand. She sipped the concoction, noticing a faint sweetness. She wouldn't swear it made the sick feeling any better, but it didn't make it any worse. "And now . . . "

The Doctor looked from her to Jack and back again, his shoulders slumped under his leather jacket. "The Time Vortex was killing you, Rose. I had to take it out of you--you couldn't let it go on your own. Would've killed me, too, I'm just a bit more resilient about that dying thing than most. Jack stepped between us." He looked at Jack a moment before his eyes crept away. Rose felt her heart sinking toward her knees and drank from the cup. "Figured he had a choice--risk dying or risk the three of us . . . falling apart."

Rose wished the cup in her hands were cool, so she could press it across her forehead. Right. For Jack, that was no choice at all. He'd almost been dead a dozen times, to hear him tell it. But far as she could figure, he hadn't had but the one family since he was old enough to leave home. He needed his partners so much. They all did. Her throat felt tight. "Dead's dead, Doctor. Is Jack dead?"

The Doctor stepped over to her and put an arm around her waist. "Sit with me," he said. She let him help her down, leaving the silly drink behind her. They crossed to the chair beside Jack. He wasn't breathing--she was convinced of it. Tears squeezed out of her eyes. _Oh, Jack . . ._ The Doctor pulled her into his arms and settled into the chair with her in his lap. "What do you know about gravity?" he asked.

The question was so far off what she was expecting, it didn't even register for a moment. She wasn't sure if she'd heard it wrong, or if he was trying to change the subject and she should slap him for it, or whether this really made sense in some way she didn't understand. "Gravity's gravity. Makes things fall. If you're in space, there isn't any."

He shook his head, which felt funny when she was tucked under his chin. "Gravity's everywhere," he said, a little sadly. "Holds you to a planet, makes the moons circle the planet and the planet circle the star. Solar systems go 'round the center of galaxies, and galaxies move, and it's all gravity. But in space, you wouldn't feel like anything was pullin' at you. Gravity's still there, it's just gone so thin you're not feeling it, and you think it can't affect you."

She half-turned in his lap so she could look up at him. "Where's this goin', Doctor? Not plannin' to be on Earth long enough to take my A-levels in science."

The Doctor kissed her forehead. "You want to? Got to be correspondence or somethin'." She laughed a little, except it was more like sobbing. Jack was so still. "Right. Gravity. You can't see life in Jack right now, but that doesn't mean it's not still there, stretched thin." Before Rose's battered mind could tell him to pull the other one or break down crying, he asked, "How many senses you got?"

He was off again. "Five."

He nodded and petted her for the comfort of it. "I got, oh, a few more. You can't see Jack breathin'. You can't hear his heart beat." Rose started crying, and he held her tighter. "You touch him and he'd feel cold to you. But things happen to a body once it's died. He'd taste different if you kissed him." He stopped for a moment. "Jack doesn't taste dead. Doesn't smell dead."

Rose swallowed back a sob, trying to stop the tears. "I don't understand."

"Me neither," the Doctor said. "Telepathic, me. And far as that goes, I'd think he was dead. But I sense time, Rose, and the warp and weft of the universe, and things I can't even say in English. And a lot of those things say the opposite. It's like he's part of the universe now, like gravity. His time just keeps going, like he'll be here till the universe itself runs down." He shuddered once more. "It's bloody awful, except I want him alive so much."

He looked wretched, with a couple tears on his face, and hope, and a subdued panic. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing is fixed in time, Rose. Couple of things fixed outside of it, but that's another story. It doesn't happen. It can't. To a Time Lord, it's past wrong, almost disgusting."

She thumped his shoulder, since that was the bit she could reach. She'd rather be angry than crying. "So, what, Jack's dead, or he's disgusting?" Even the TARDIS sounds unhappy.

The Doctor made a frustrated noise and pulled her closer. "It's not like that. It's . . . it's like watchin' somebody without any skin, all muscle and blood and things you're not meant to see. Except they're walkin' around, breathing and talking to you like they don't even know." He buried his face in her hair. "It was like that. When he ran in. It was like that. It's _still_ like that."

She shivered. "So, Jack without skin, except only you can see it. Or Jack dead. Got a preference, personally." She thumped him again. "You do, too, and don't you dare let him think otherwise if--when--we get him back. And while you're at it, don't go makin' my decisions for me again, you. Partner, here, not pet."

He raised his head, and she turned hers. They looked at Jack's body lying on the table in front of them. The Doctor muttered, "Think I can manage that, oh, least as well as you listen when I say 'don't wander off'."

"Oi!" Thump.


	3. Your Lips Say Yes . . .

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Superfast beta'd by Aibhinn! Still "hurt" without a whole lot of comfort, but it closes. There will be a sequel. When I have several chapters pre-written. *grins*
> 
> Disclaimer: They're not mine, I'm just haunted by them.

The first breath was like drawing liquid fire into his lungs.

Every cell in his body hurt, like he'd been run through a meat grinder and lived to tell the tale. His skin felt like someone had torn it off, dragged the inside over a thousand lemon graters, and pasted it back on. His head throbbed, his lungs burned, and he couldn't feel his fingers.

The second breath wasn't much better. He could feel his fingers, though.

By the time he could really hear, Rose was babbling joyfully. Bits of it drifted through to him: " . . . alive! Don't you ever! . . . Doctor? . . . Oh my god, Jack, we were so scared!"

Jack discovered he had one elbow underneath him and Rose Tyler plastered to the front of him. It'd be delightful if he didn't hurt so much. He concentrated on breathing and wrapped his other arm around her. "Rose," he managed.

There was no driving sense of purpose this time, no need to be on his feet and moving. Jack luxuriated in that feeling, letting the pain ebb at its own pace and feeling Rose's tears steadily dampening his T-shirt. Tears . . . "Rose? Where's the Doctor? Is he okay?"

Rose sniffled and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Jack sat all the way up. "He's fine. Kind of freaked out, but fine. God, Jack, we thought maybe you were dead."

Jack thought back through darkness. "Maybe I was," he said, keeping his voice wry enough she didn't have to take him seriously. "Have to ask the Doctor."

Rose nodded. "I know. We've been taking turns sitting with you. Bet he's here in a minute--he can't have missed all that noise I was making. Probably taking a couple minutes to make sure he doesn't say something stupid."

Jack laughed a little, and it didn't hurt as much as he thought it might. "The Doctor? Saying something stupid? He wouldn't think he was capable of it."

She leaned forward and kissed him like he was fragile. Which was . . . okay, at the moment. "'m so, _so_ glad you're alive. So's he. But he says whatever's kept you alive's really freakin' him out." The hint of a smile touched one corner of her mouth. "It's like he doesn't know whether to say 'Fantastic!' or 'I'm so sorry'." Jack found himself smiling a little at her description, but a small, gnawing feeling settled into his stomach. "Was like watchin' a cat that can't decide what side of the door t' be on. I kind of gave him what-for about it." Her smile went a little sheepish.

Jack hugged her. "We'll worry about that later. Everybody didn't live this time, but it could have been so much worse. And we're all still here, the three of us. That makes it a good day, in my book."

"Mine, too," the Doctor said from the doorway. Rose and Jack looked over at him. Jack found himself studying the Doctor's expression cautiously, looking for signs of what Rose described as "freaking out." There was tension in his face, like some nagging pain played on the edges of his senses. _Tell me about it_ , Jack thought, ruefully. Rose let go of Jack, leaving one hand resting on his back as the Doctor advanced.

It was like watching a man prepare to walk into a furnace. Every step was measured and completely controlled. The worry in Jack's gut developed into a stew of little crabs, each one clawing at some vulnerable spot. He remembered the Doctor moving between him and Rose as she glowed, and later, stepping up behind him like he was walking through the viscous atmosphere of Cerulia. Jack's breath caught in his throat: The way the Doctor moved hurt far more than any pains lingering in Jack's body.

But the Doctor wrapped his arms around Jack and held him close. "Watched you die twice, now," that brusque Northern-accented voice said. "Try not to do it again any time soon. Won't be permanent, but it's hard on the people who love you."

Jack swallowed. "What's wrong with me, Doctor?" His voice was small in his own ears.

"You're a fixed point in time, you are. A function of the universe: Jack Harkness, alive and whole. Forever, far as I can tell."

The tension in the Time Lord's frame was amazing. "Am I hurting you, somehow, Doctor? 'Cause to me, that doesn't sound like a bad thing." _"Exterminate!"_ rang metallically in the back of Jack's head, and he tried to remember being dead.

The Doctor said, "No, no. 'Course not."

"Like watchin' someone walking around without their skin, he said." Rose rested her head against Jack's shoulder.

Jack shuddered. "Oh, great. I'm not painful, I'm gross."

"No," the Doctor said. He straightened up, but left his hands on Jack's arms. "No no no, you're just . . . impossible."

"Like that's new," Rose pointed out.

"Hey!" Jack said.

The Doctor said, "I can see it. It's not like I can close my eyes to stop that. It's there, _all the time_. It's in every nerve in my body, Jack."

Jack's defences were back up. "You know, the potential for power-play in that is just amazing." If he sounded a little sour, he figured he was due.

Rose swatted him. "I'd say 'time and place,' but with you, the time's 'whenever' and the place is 'all over the TARDIS'."

"You don't usually object." Jack couldn't help smiling a little, even if it didn't get as far as his eyes.

The Doctor said, "Jack, anything that keeps you with us . . . I'm happy." He sighed, and failed to quite suppress a shudder. "We want you. We love you. It's just goin' to take me some time to . . . adjust."

His lips kept saying one thing while his body said another. The worst part was, both things felt true. Jack bit back the first two or three replies that came to mind. Finally, he said, "Good thing it's a time machine, huh?"


End file.
